We’ve got a very “in yer face” distraction from our grief over Archie (in the form of JD) but that doesn’t mean we’ve stopped thinking about the old fella. He is rapidly becoming a superhero in our world…..well, if he wasn’t already!

One of us will get a glint in our eye and will start “do you remember when….”

…..Archie jumped onto a huge pile of rubbish in the back of the car and refused to get out even though he was squashed into a tiny space on top of a load of very uncomfortable stuff so we had to take him to the dump with us rather than leave him behind…..

…..he’d sit for days inside the front door waiting for me to come home from a business trip……

…..he’d always know when I left work – a check with DM would confirm that he’d get restless at the exact time I’d be leaving the office….

…..he knew when Jo’s (the naked housekeeper) heart had been broken and he wouldn’t leave her side……

…….he ran off on St Martins (in Scilly) because his failing eyesight meant he thought he'd seen us but it was another couple further along the beach……

……Archie wouldn’t leave the beach at Crantock, he lay on the sand and growled because he felt he’d been short-changed because the tide was in and he’d not walked as far…..

……he swam right across the Thames in pursuit of a duck, only turning back about three feet from the far shore (I thought I’d have to swim across myself to get him)…..

Or we’d say……..

…..am I glamming him up or did he really climb out of a bedroom window, onto the roof of the conservatory and jump down into the garden?…..

…….do you remember how much he loved Mo?……

…….can you remember when we were worried he’d hurt the chickens when all he wanted to do was herd them into a corner?…..

…….did he really eat a half pound of butter, wrapper and all then puke it back up behind the radiator?…..

……did he really show David what he thought of him in the early days of our relationship and fetch the stick back to us, then take it a few feet away, drop it and piss on it?…….

……do you remember him ending up with a mouth full of swan feathers when he was swimming and the swans were (rightly) protecting their young?……. (That was nearly a Roy Hattersley moment!)

Of course there are the less desirable memories too like the time when he bit my best buddy’s dog, Shadow on Christmas day and poor Shadow ended up getting stitches on Christmas day while Archie got sent home in disgrace…..

I can’t remember the indiscretions of Wodehouse’s Archie because it’s a long time since I read it but I’m sure that they were not as varied or as legendary as Archie the dog’s indiscretions……..and Archie the dog’s are taking on even greater stature and complexity each day.

Soon, we’ll be remembering how he swam the Channel to bring back fresh French bread for us!